Ecclesiastes 6 is short and sobering. Solomon describes a man who has “riches, wealth, and honour,” yet God “giveth him not power to eat thereof.” Another has a hundred children and a long life, yet his soul is never “filled with good.” “All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.” The chapter closes with the question the whole first half of the book has been circling: “who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow?”
A study in Ecclesiastes 6 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 9 min read
No Power To Eat Thereof
“There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease. If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he. For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other. Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?”
Ecclesiastes 6:1-6
Chapter 5 ended with a blessing: the man to whom God gives wealth and “power to eat thereof.” Chapter 6 opens with the opposite: a man who has “riches, wealth, and honour,” everything his heart desires, “yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it.” He has the goods but not the gladness. Illness, worry, a broken home, or simply a restless heart keeps him from enjoying what he has, and in the end strangers inherit it. Solomon calls it “an evil disease,” and says it is “common among men.”
Then he pushes the point further. In Israel, many children and long life were counted as the greatest blessings. Yet a man might have “an hundred children” and live “a thousand years twice told,” and still his “soul be not filled with good.” If he dies unmourned, without even an honourable burial, Solomon says a stillborn child is better off. The problem is not what the man has. It is what he is. His soul is empty, and no quantity of blessings can fill it.
“To live for self is to perish. Covetousness, the desire of benefit for self’s sake, cuts the soul off from life. It is the spirit of Satan to get, to draw to self. It is the spirit of Christ to give, to sacrifice self for the good of others.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 259
“Do not all go to one place?” Once more Solomon returns to death, the leveller. Every life “under the sun” ends in the grave, and a long life without God only postpones the same end.
The Appetite Is Not Filled
“All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled. For what hath the wise more than the fool? what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit.”
Ecclesiastes 6:7-9
“All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.” We work to eat, and eat to work, and are hungry again. The word translated “appetite” is nephesh, often translated “soul.” The deeper hunger is not in the stomach. We feed the body, and the soul stays hungry.
“Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire.” It is better to enjoy what is actually in front of you than to let your desires roam restlessly after what you do not have. Contentment says: this is what God has given me today, and I will thank Him for it. Covetousness says: I will be happy when I have that. Covetousness never arrives, because there is always another “that.”
“Faith in God’s love and overruling providence lightens the burdens of anxiety and care. It fills the heart with joy and contentment in the highest or the lowliest lot.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 600
Who Knoweth What Is Good For Man?
“That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he. Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better? For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?”
Ecclesiastes 6:10-12
“It is known that it is man.” Man is man: created, limited, made from the dust, as his very name Adam reminds him. “Neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he.” We cannot argue with God or overrule Him. Many words only “increase vanity.”
And then the great question: “who knoweth what is good for man in this life?” Life passes “as a shadow,” long in the evening, gone at night. We cannot even see what will come after us. From under the sun, no one can answer. That is the point Solomon has been driving toward for six chapters. Human wisdom cannot tell us what life is for.
But God can, and He has. “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8). And more than that, He has shown us in a Person. Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). The second half of Ecclesiastes turns increasingly toward what is “better,” and toward the answer Solomon will finally give at the end: “Fear God, and keep his commandments” (12:13).
